"Pieces of the Island"-An English Translation

Eriberto Ruiz

On the morning of Tuesday November 15th various buildings were seen with anti-governmental signs in the locality of Los Pinos, and also in La Guinera on the morning of the 16th. Both of these neighborhoods belong to the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo in Havana. According to the dissident Eriberto Liranza Romero, a local, the signs referenced the “hunger which the Cuban people are subjected to“, in addition to slogans of “Down with Fidel and Raul“.

As product of this, police agents quickly directed themselves to the home of another well known local dissident- Eriberto Ruiz, who is vice president of the Brothers to the Rescue of Freedom and Democracy Movement. At that moment Ruiz was in the middle of a wake for a recently deceased loved one in his home. Despite this, a political police official by the name of Nelson “accused him of being responsible for the signs and threatened him with time behind bars if he continued“.

Later that night two G2 (political police) officials approached the home of Eriberto Liranza and surrounded it, keeping a close vigilance over every person who entered or exited the house.

During the morning hours of Wednesday, the president of the Hard Line Front, Hermogenes Guerrero Gomez, was also accused of hanging the signs. “It was 8 in the morning“, narrates Guerrero, “when a police motorcycle and car parked outside my house and agent Alejandro approached me. He told me that I had to accompany him to the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) Unit in Capri, Arroyo Naranjo“. The dissident was interrogated by various officials but he reiterated that he did not know anything about the signs. Hermogenes affirmed to them that “one group of dissidents cannot be blamed, but instead the people in general, because we are all tired of the Castro regime“.

The activist added, “in fact, I told them that Fidel and Raul Castro already know very well what I think of them and I don’t have to hide my feelings about this macabre government“.

Liranza Romero explains that “all of this has been part on increased operation of repression on behalf of the regime, but it also proves that the majority of the people are unhappy with the Castro regime. Despite cosmetic changes which they are supposedly carrying out, they have not tried to solve the issues of the people. The people are hungry and need food, they need decent homes“.

Romero adds that “popular discontent has increased due to lack of freedoms. For example, many of my neighbors are constantly being harassed and forced to give ID, and so too have been new dissidents who are joining together to denounce the violations of their rights“.

Despite all of this, the president of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy declares that “the dissidence of Arroyo Naranjo is growing and coming closer together, and regardless of the fact that the political police has not ceased their attempts to divide us and destroy us, they are not achieving it. We are growing“.